Jimmie Johnson leads Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and the rest of the pack into the first turn on the way to his second triumph at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Johnson, the 2006 winner of the race, became just the second driver to win the annual 400-miler from the pole position.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, talks things over with a Goodyear official along pit road.

Johnson survives tire turmoil, posts second Brickyard win

By Steve Ballard, The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS  A triumphant day for Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports was an embarrassment for NASCAR and Goodyear in a bizarre Allstate 400 at the Brickyard on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In a race run in fits and spurts because of tire issues that persisted throughout, Johnson's crew got him the lead with a quick final pit stop and the two-time defending Sprint Cup champion did the rest for his second Brickyard win in the past three years.

"Great race car, great pit stops. I'm just so stoked for these guys," Johnson said after holding off Carl Edwards over the final seven laps for his second win of the season and 35th of his career. "We've had our butts handed to us a few times (this year). This win is extremely rewarding in a lot of ways."

Johnson's joy wasn't a shared emotion on a day eerily reminiscent of the Formula One tire debacle in the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis. That day, just six cars ran in the race after Michelin pulled its teams out over safety concerns.

While there was no danger of the 15th Brickyard not being run, there was enough danger to the drivers that NASCAR was forced to call competition cautions throughout the day to allow teams to keep fresh tires on their cars. Eleven cautions led to a record 52 of the 160 laps being run behind the pace car.

"I've never been a part of anything like this," said Johnson, who appropriately enough blew a tire during his victory burnout. "It made for a long, slow day."

Speedway president Joie Chitwood remembers all too well being a part of something like this but said the two situations were very different. In this case, he credited all parties involved with doing the best they could under the circumstances.

"The key is we're all in it together," he said. "I would tell you that's probably the most different from 2005. Obviously, it's not the race you want to present to the largest crowd to watch a stock-car race this year (an estimated 225,000)."

The problems were a perfect storm of an abrasive racing surface, a lack of adequate testing and a new car never before used at Indy.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said everyone expected rapid tire wear to correct itself once enough laps were run to lay down a coat of rubber on the track.

"This isn't the first time we've raced here with this surface the way it is and we've been able to accomplish what we needed to accomplish," he said. "We felt like it would come to us by race day. It didn't happen. We'll just have to take what we learned today and do a better job next year."

Pemberton spent the race on pit road, examining tires and talking to frustrated crew chiefs. Afterward, he defended the job NASCAR did in staging a safe race.

"Not every race is a barnburner," Pemberton said. "If you are a good fan, and you didn't get what you wanted, it's OK to be disappointed and we can be disappointed right along with you. We're here to put on the best races we can, and we do a damn good job of it most of the time. Everybody inside these walls works real hard to do that."

Goodyear's Greg Stucker said the tire compound was the same one the company brought to Indy a year ago, when similar problems were resolved early in the race.

"That didn't happen today, so we need to understand why," he said. "I don't think anybody likes to race like this, us included."

Because of all the cautions, the race had a record 16 leaders and 26 lead changes. But Johnson, who joined Kevin Harvick (2003) in becoming the only drivers to win the race from the pole, clearly had the dominant car throughout. He led eight times for 71 laps on the way to collecting the $509,236 top prize.

Edwards was clearly disappointed after being unable to prevent Johnson and his team from lining up at the start-finish line for the traditional kissing of the bricks.

"I honestly believed I was going to be able to drive by Jimmie," he said of their seven-lap shootout. "He was holding back a little more than I thought he was. I just could never get to him. I thought it was ours."

Amid all the negativity surrounding the race, veteran Jeff Burton— whose ninth-place finish included extending his laps run at Indy to an event-record 2,365 — jokingly predicted disgruntled fans might one day brag about having been there on the day a bit of strange history was made.

"In 25 or 30 years," he said. "They can call it whatever they want. I thought it was kind of fun — 10-lap sprints, you know. It was less work, like running little heat races with new tires every 10 laps."

Johnson didn't use the word "fun" in his assessment, but he clearly knows how he'll remember it in 25 years: As a win.

Hamlin, who led late but gave the lead up during the frenzied final sequences of pit stops, said he never got a feel for how good his car was because of the tire concerns.

"I don't think anyone could push their car as hard as they would have liked to, today," said Hamlin. "I was patient as I ever was in any other race. When I wanted to run hard, I could look like I was 20 mph better than anyone else, but I knew I was going to pay for it in the end."

NASCAR started the day with a scheduled competition caution to check tire wear after 10 laps, but it didn't even get that far as Michael Waltrip spun on the fourth lap to bring out the first yellow. Some of the teams decided to pit then, including 12th-place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr.

NASCAR pushed back the lap 10 caution to 14, but again the field didn't make it. Kurt Busch wrecked into Harvick on that lap to bring out another yellow. Because Earnhardt had already pitted, he stayed out and assumed the lead with the intention of trying to run to the next planned caution on lap 30.

But his tire started to fade four laps short of the stop, dropping him off the pace and a lap down when he had to pit under green.

Still, Earnhardt defended NASCAR.

"The truth of the deal is that was the best show we could put on today, NASCAR did everything right," he said. "It's all we could do aside from loading up and going home and not running at all. Yeah, it wasn't quite the race everybody expected, but shoot it was better than some of the races you've probably seen here."

"It's a really, really, really disappointing situation," said Kenseth, who finished 38th. "This is one of the two biggest races of the year ... I feel bad for the fans — we're running three-quarters speed because we're worried about the tires blowing out. They got blown out every eight laps."

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